Knowledge Before Speaking or Action

Its interesting when an issue that I find troubling, especially as a personal issue or something that I find challenging in life, are addressed in literature, talks or lectures that I come across in passing. This recently happened when I was watching an interview with Hamza Yusuf, arguably the most notable Islamic Scholar in America, about his translation and exegesis of Imam Al-Tahawi’s Creed where he says to the interviewer,

“There is a chapter in Al-Bukhari which is called, bab al ‘ilm qawbla qali wa a’alam, the chapter of knowledge before speaking or action. Knowledge has to proceed action. We have a lot of activists in our community and you have activists who are not informed by sound knowledge they can end up doing a lot more harm. Communism is a really good example of people that recognized wrongs and injustices in the world but because they did not have a sound understanding of the world they ended up doing far more harm than good.”

And then I saw this! Subhana’Allah, may He protect us from representing Islam this way.